Death - Third Monk

Apr 17, 2014Jun 17, 2016

6 Amazing Things Scientists Have Discovered About Psychedelics

Despite the fact that the U.S. government deems many hallucinogenic or psychedelic substances to be dangerous, classifying them as Schedule I drugs with “no currently accepted medical use,” various scientists have dared to study their effects.

What they’ve found over the years paints a startling, promising and powerful picture of potentially game-changing medicines.

LSD Mitigates End-of-Life Anxiety

The results of the first clinical study of the therapeutic use of LSD in humans in more than 40 years were published. They show that LSD can promote statistically significant reductions in anxiety for people coming to terms with their own impending demise.

Aldous Huxley famously made use of LSD as a way to ease his own passing.

Swiss psychiatrist Peter Gasser and his colleagues conducted the double-blind, placebo-controlled study, sponsored by the non-profit Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS). They tracked 12 people who were near the end of life as they attended LSD-assisted psychotherapy sessions. In his report, Gasser concluded that the study subjects’ anxiety “went down and stayed down.”

Psilocybin – Magic Mushrooms Actually Calms Certain Brain Functions

The common conception is that psychedelics do something extra to cause their effects – like increase activity, add hallucinations, promote awareness, etc.

A study that examined brain scans of people under the influence of psilocybin found that it reduces activity in certain areas of the brain. That reduction of activity leads to the drug’s effect on cognition and memory.

Psychedelics, and psilocybin in particular, might actually be eliminating what could be called the extra “noise” in the brain.

MDMA Promotes the Release of Oxytocin – Helping to Treat PTSD and Severe Social Anxiety

Before being classified as a Schedule I substance, therapists experimented with MDMA beginning in the 1970s to help reduce moderate depression and anxiety among their adult patients. Recent research primarily supported by the MAPS has continued to turn up positive results for the drug’s potential therapeutic use.

Various clinical trials and statistical research have confirmed that MDMA can successfully treat post-traumatic stress in military veterans and others.

A 2009 study offers a plausible explanation for MDMA’s effectiveness in treating PTSD. The double-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled study of 15 healthy individuals confirmed that MDMA causes the brain to release oxytocin, which is the human hormone linked to feelings of love and compassion.

MAPS recently received government approval to launch a new study examining MDMA’s potential for treating social anxiety in autistic adults. Based on the known effects of MDMA, as well as individual reports, this exploratory study will focus on enhancing functional skills and quality of life in autistic adults with social anxiety.

Psilocybin Can Help You Quit Smoking

Psychiatry Professor Matthew Johnson, who works at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, presented the preliminary results of a pilot feasibility study looking at the ability of psilocybin to treat smoking addiction.

For the study, five cigarette-addicted participants underwent placebo-controlled psilocybin treatment with a psychiatrist. All five completely quit smoking after their first psilocybin session. At all followup visits, which occurred up to one year later for the first four participants, it was biologically confirmed that the participants had abstained from cigarettes.

Ayahuasca Can Treat Drug Addiction

Ayahuasca is a brew prepared with the Banisteriopsis caapi vine, originally used for spiritual and healing purposes in the Peruvian Amazon rainforest. The vine is usually mixed with leaves containing the psychedelic compound DMT.

Gabor Mate, a medical doctor from Vancouver who is a prominent Ayahuasca researcher, contends that therapy assisted by psychedelics, and ayahuasca in particular, can untangle complex, unconscious psychological stresses. He claims these stresses underlie and contribute to all chronic medical conditions, from cancer and addiction to depression and multiple sclerosis.

The results of the first North American observational study on the safety and long-term effectiveness of Ayahuasca treatment for addiction and dependence were published in June 2013 in the journal Current Drug Abuse Reviews.

All of the participants in the study reported positive and lasting changes, and the study found statistically significant improvements “for scales assessing hopefulness, empowerment, mindfulness, and quality of life meaning and outlook subscales. Self-reported alcohol, tobacco and cocaine use declined, although cannabis and opiate use did not.”

The reported reductions in problematic cocaine use were also statistically significant.

Taking DMT Can Naturally Simulate Death

DMT causes hallucinogenic experiences and is conveniently made up of a chemical compound that already occurs within the human body (as well as in a number of plants). This means our brains are naturally set up to process the drug, because it has receptors that exist specifically to do so. Cannabis is another illegal drug that occurs endogenously.

Some research based on near-death experiences points to the fact that the brain releases DMT during death. Some researchers have also conjectured that DMT is released during other intense experiences, including orgasm.

> 5 Things Scientists Have Discovered About Mind-Altering Drugs | Alter Net

Feb 6, 2014Jun 17, 2016

Stop Motion: Life, Death, Rebirth and Face Paint (Video)

Emma Allen is a talented British animator and body painter. Her hauntingly beautiful take on life, death, and rebirth had her take 750 photographs over 17 hours and 5 total days.

It was worth it, her finished work is equally beautiful and thought-provoking.

Jan 8, 2014Jun 17, 2016

There is Only One Energy in the Universe and You’re It – Alan Watts

Alan Watts suggests that humans created a superior being to worship out of fear and uncertainty.

The behavior of worship is reinforced by government and religious organizations to create a population that will obey. If we realize that we are all one energy, we can start to see through the illusion.

Audio of the speech is from Alan Watts lecture Zen Bones and Tales.

The Yin and Yang of the Universe

According to Buddhist philosophy, all this universe is one ‘dadada.’ That means ‘ten thousand functions, ten thousand things, one suchness,’ and we’re all one suchness. And that means that suchness comes and goes like anything else because this whole world is an on-and-off system.

As the Chinese say, it’s the yang and the yin, and therefore it consists of ‘now you see it, now you don’t, here you are, here you aren’t, here you are,’ because that the nature of energy, to be like waves, and waves have crests and troughs, only we, being under a kind of sleepiness or illusion, imagine that the trough is going to overcome the wave or the crest, the yin, or the dark principle, is going to overcome the yang, or the light principle, and that ‘off’ is going to finally triumph over ‘on.’

Death is the Other Face

Isn’t it odd that anything exists? It’s most peculiar, it requires effort, it requires energy, and it would have been so much easier for there to have been nothing at all. Therefore, we think ‘well, since being, since the ‘is’ side of things is so much effort’ you always give up after a while and you sink back into death.

But death is just the other face of energy, and it’s the rest, the not being anything around, that produces something around, just in the same way that you can’t have ‘solid’ without ‘space,’ or ‘space’ without ‘solid.’

Reborn Star Dust

You are really a playing of this one energy, and there is nothing else but that, that is you, but that for you to be always you would be an insufferable bore, and therefore it is arranged that you stop being you after a while and then come back as someone else altogether, and so when you find that out, you become full energy and delight. As Blake said, ‘Energy is eternal delight.’

Fear of the Illusion

You realize you’re That–we won’t put a name on it– you’re That, and you can’t be anything else. So you are relieved of fundamental terror. That doesn’t mean that you’re always going to be a great hero, that you won’t jump when you hear a bang, that you won’t worry occasionally, that you won’t lose your temper. It means, though, that fundamentally deep, deep, deep down within you, you will be able to be human, not a stone Buddha.

But to have no hang-ups, that is to say, to be able to drift like a cloud and flow like water, seeing that all life is a magnificent illusion, a plane of energy, and that there is absolutely nothing to be afraid of. Fundamentally. You will be afraid on the surface. You will be afraid of putting your hand in the fire. You will be afraid of getting sick, etc. But you will not be afraid of fear. Fear will pass over your mind like a black cloud will be reflected in the mirror.

Dec 19, 2013Jun 17, 2016

Top 5 Regrets People Have on Their Death Beds

For many years I worked in palliative care. My patients were those who had gone home to die. Some incredibly special times were shared. I was with them for the last three to twelve weeks of their lives.

People grow a lot when they are faced with their own mortality. I learnt never to underestimate someone’s capacity for growth. Some changes were phenomenal. Each experienced a variety of emotions, as expected, denial, fear, anger, remorse, more denial and eventually acceptance. Every single patient found their peace before they departed though, every one of them.

When questioned about any regrets they had or anything they would do differently, common themes surfaced again and again.

Here are the most common five:

I Wish I’d Had the Courage to Live a Life True to Myself, Not the Life Others Expected of Me

This was the most common regret of all. When people realize that their life is almost over and look back clearly on it, it is easy to see how many dreams have gone unfulfilled. Most people had not honored even a half of their dreams and had to die knowing that it was due to choices they had made, or not made.

It is very important to try and honour at least some of your dreams along the way. From the moment that you lose your health, it is too late. Health brings a freedom very few realise, until they no longer have it.

I Wish I Hadn’t Worked So Hard

This came from every male patient that I nursed. They missed their children’s youth and their partner’s companionship. Women also spoke of this regret, but as most were from an older generation, many of the female patients had not been breadwinners. All of the men I nursed deeply regretted spending so much of their lives on the treadmill of a work existence.

I Wish I’d Had the Courage to Express My Feelings

Many people suppressed their feelings to keep the peace with others. As a result, they settled for a mediocre existence and never became who they were truly capable of becoming. Many developed illnesses relating to the bitterness and resentment they carried as a result.

We cannot control the reactions of others. However, although people may initially react when you change the way you are by speaking honestly, in the end it raises the relationship to a whole new and healthier level. Either that or it releases the unhealthy relationship from your life. Either way, you win.

I Wish I Had Stayed In Touch With My Friends

Often they would not truly realize the full benefits of old friends until their dying weeks and it was not always possible to track them down. Many had become so caught up in their own lives that they had let golden friendships slip by over the years. There were many deep regrets about not giving friendships the time and effort that they deserved. Everyone misses their friends when they are dying.

It is common for anyone in a busy lifestyle to let friendships slip. But when you are faced with your approaching death, it is all comes down to love and relationships in the end.

I Wish That I Had Let Myself Be Happier

This is a surprisingly common one. Many did not realize until the end that happiness is a choice. They had stayed stuck in old patterns and habits. The so-called ‘comfort’ of familiarity overflowed into their emotions, as well as their physical lives. Fear of change had them pretending to others, and to their selves, that they were content, when deep within, they longed to laugh properly and have silliness in their life again.

When you are on your deathbed, what others think of you is a long way from your mind. How wonderful to be able to let go and smile again, long before you are dying.

Life is a choice. It is YOUR life. Choose consciously, choose wisely, choose honestly. Choose happiness.

> Dying Regret | Inspiration and Chai

Tag: Death